Tractor beams -- the ability to trap and move objects using laser light -- are the stuff of science fiction, but a team of NASA scientists has won funding to study the concept for remotely capturing planetary or atmospheric particles and delivering them to a robotic rover or orbiting spacecraft for analysis.

The NASA Office of the Chief Technologist (OCT) has awarded Principal Investigator Paul Stysley and team members Demetrios Poulios and Barry Coyle at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., $100,000 to study three experimental methods for corralling particles and transporting them via laser light to an instrument -- akin to a vacuum using suction to collect and transport dirt to a canister or bag. Once delivered, an instrument would then characterize their composition.

"Though a mainstay in science fiction, and Star Trek in particular, laser-based trapping isn't fanciful or beyond current technological know-how," Stysley said. The team has identified three different approaches for transporting particles, as well as single molecules, viruses, ribonucleic acid, and fully functioning cells, using the power of light.

"The original thought was that we could use tractor beams for cleaning up orbital debris," Stysley said. "But to pull something that huge would be almost impossible -- at least now. That's when it bubbled up that perhaps we could use the same approach for sample collection."

With the Phase-1 funding from OCT's recently reestablished NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program designed to spur the development of "revolutionary" space technologies, the team will study the state of the technology to determine which of the three techniques would apply best to sample collection. OCT received hundreds of proposals, ultimately selecting only 30 for initial funding.

Replace Current Sample-Collection Methods

Currently, NASA uses a variety of techniques to collect extraterrestrial samples. With Stardust, a space probe launched in 1999, the Agency used aerogel to gather samples as it flew through the coma of comet Wild 2. A capsule returned the samples in 2006. NASA's next rover to Mars, Curiosity, will drill and scoop samples from the Martian surface and then carry out detailed analyses of the materials with one of the rover's many onboard instruments, including the Goddard-built Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite.

"These techniques have proven to be largely successful, but they are limited by high costs and limited range and sample rate," Stysley said. "An opticaltrapping system, on the other hand, could grab desired molecules from the upper atmosphere on an orbiting spacecraft or trap them from the ground or lower atmosphere from a lander. In other words, they could continuously and remotely capture particles over a longer period of time, which would enhance science goals and reduce mission risk."

Team to Study Three Approaches

One experimental approach the team plans to study -- the optical vortex or "optical tweezers" method -- involves the use of two counter-propagating beams of light. The resulting ring-like geometry confines particles to the dark core of the overlapping beams. By alternately strengthening or weakening the intensity of one of the light beams -- in effect heating the air around the trapped particle -- researchers have shown in laboratory testing that they can move the particle along the ring's center. This technique, however, requires the presence of an atmosphere.

Another technique employs optical solenoid beams -- those whose intensity peaks spiral around the axis of propagation. Testing has shown that the approach can trap and exert a force that drives particles in the opposite direction of the light-beam source. In other words, the particulate matter is pulled back along the entire beam of light. Unlike the optical vortex method, this technique relies solely on electromagnetic effects and could operate in a space vacuum, making it ideal for studying the composition of materials on one of the airless planetary moons, for example.

The third technique exists only on paper and has never been demonstrated in the laboratory, Poulios said. It involves the use of a Bessel beam. Normal laser beams when shined against a wall appear as a small point. With Bessel beams, however, rings of light surround the central dot. In other words, when seen straight on, the Bessel beam looks like the ripples surrounding a pebble dropped in a pond. According to theory, the laser beam could induce electric and magnetic fields in the path of an object. The spray of light scattered forward by these fields could pull the object backward, against the movement of the beam itself.

"We want to make sure we thoroughly understand these methods. We have hope that one of these will work for our purposes," Coyle said. "Once we select a technique, we will be in position to then formulate a possible system" and compete for additional NIAC funding to advance the technology to the next level of development. "We're at the starting gate on this," Coyle added. "This is a new application that no one has claimed yet."

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new type of optical particle trap can be used to manipulate bacteria, viruses and other particles on a chip as part of an integrated optofluidic platform. The optical trap is the latest innovation from ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- The ability to control light forms the basis of many technologies, from microscopy to optical computing. Now, a team of scientists from ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, has demonstrated that a single organic molecule ...

A team of EU-funded scientists has come up with a way of generating rotating electron beams. The technique, described in the journal Nature, could be used to probe the magnetic properties of materials and could even be applied ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- For more than 40 years, scientists have been using the radiation pressure of light to move and manipulate small objects in space. But until now, the movements have always been restricted to very small scales, ...

For many practical applications involving lasers, it's important to be able to control the direction of the laser beams. Just ask Han Solo, or the captain of the Death Star. Researchers from North Carolina State University ...

Recommended for you

A team of scientists has detected a hidden state of electronic order in a layered material containing lanthanum, barium, copper, and oxygen (LBCO). When cooled to a certain temperature and with certain concentrations of barium, ...

A team of researchers from the U.S., New Zealand and Norway has used computer simulations to predict several characteristics of the heaviest element, oganesson. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, ...

Researchers at the Center for Quantum Nanoscience within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have made a major breakthrough in controlling the quantum properties of single atoms. In an international collaboration with IBM ...

A team of researchers led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has demonstrated a new method for splitting light beams into their frequency modes. The scientists can then choose the frequencies they ...

A team of researchers from several institutions in Japan has described a physical system that can be described as existing above "absolute hot" and also below absolute zero. In their paper published in the journal Physical ...

If they exist, axions, among the candidates for dark matter particles, could interact with the matter comprising the universe, but at a much weaker extent than previously theorized. New, rigorous constraints on the properties ...

You could collect the surrounding dust, perhaps melting that material together to make small pellets, you could then launch these small pellets at space junk knocking it out of orbit.A solar powered motor could launch the little pellets etc.

I check physorg every morning (except Sunday) along with CNN, BBC, etc., and I depend on it to stay abreast of developments in the sciences. I have to agree with Arx Ferrum about the insults and attacks: totally unnecessary and inapropriate. Since I also agree about the internet as an uncensored public forum, I suggest that the nut cases go to craigslist/rants and raves instead of here. Please.

Then read the articles and ignore the comments, you thin skinned, narrow minded twit. Do you think you have a monopoly on sanity and what constitutes a 'nutcase' or not. In the real world people do disagree, sometimes strongly and you might be better off using the nature of the comments to assess the character of the contributors. Me? I just don't like your morally superior attitude. Piss off.

I agree. They are SO badly done. No skill at all. Completely without style or wit.

Why do we do this to complete strangers?

Why ask a question when already know the answer.

Why are we forcing laws to restrict free speech on the Internet?

We aren't. And such a law would have no effect in the US. The Supreme Court would knock it down as it has done many times already.

Sorry I am presently unable to produce a worthy insult. Perhaps if you were to make a much stupider post I would be inspired. This is the best I can do:

For a first post that was mediocre. No passion, only a boring rant coupled with an unneeded question. First posts should have some passion. Many first posts have been directed at me for savaging deserving Cranks so I know passion when I see it. There was no spittle, no self-contradictory statements, no bizarre non-sequitors just one silly question which contained the answer.

I can't help but wonder how much energy in is required to get how much "attractive" force out, and additionally: What is the maximum potential "attractive" force anyhow? Will it be strong enough to counter 1G, 1.5G? or what?

lol EthelredAn overreaching conclusion. It pains me to read some comments. I take pains to understand. Painstaking are the attempts to understand you all. The attempts harm me not. I remain unscathed. No self damaged done. Besides, in an imperfect world, healing makes sense.

Bill, while I may agree in part with your sentiment, things like optical tweezers have been around almost 20 years. Laser manipulation of atoms and molecules continues to progress. It is possible to trap and manipulate dust sized particles.

However the engineer in me would like to see a cost/benefit analysis. The article makes the point that a system like this could be used continuously, the 'infinite ammo' argument. But is it really better than say, a scoop, on the Martian surface? Or for instance an aerogel trap in the vacuum of space? Perhaps the specific targeting of individual dust particles is desirable. But it feels unnecessarily complex.

Then read the articles and ignore the comments, you thin skinned, narrow minded twit. Do you think you have a monopoly on sanity and what constitutes a 'nutcase' or not. In the real world people do disagree, sometimes strongly and you might be better off using the nature of the comments to assess the character of the contributors. Me? I just don't like your morally superior attitude. Piss off.

While it's true that one could just go about reading the articles and ignoring the comments, arri_guy's comment isn't completely without merit as the comment section does, in theory, have the *potential* to provive readers with additional, useful insights into the content of the articles. However, as the % of posts of dubious value increases in any forum, it becomes harder and harder to justify spending time to fish out interesting posts, leading a lot of worthwhile contributors to drop out, in turn leading to a network effect where the signal to noise ratio goes to almost all noise.

It's not just about various people vigourously expressing strong differences of opinion. Lord knows physics is full of researchers treating each other like assholes (though this seems to have gotten much worse since the rise of string theory, but I digress). It's about the problem of "equal time" being given to notions that really are insane and without merit (no evidence). And at some point, if no one in charge puts their foot down to curb the worst abuses /the only things left on these forums are going to be the ones contributed by the nutcases and the insane./ I think it's especially worth bringing up because over the last few months Physorg admins seem to have completely abdicated the enforcement of their own rules regarding cranking and religous & creationist postings.

Of course, contenting ourselves with just reading the articles remains an option, but what a pity that someone 'reasonable' might avoid interations with other readers because the forum has become so acidic in tone.

As an engineer, my objection is to making a jump from a small advance in technology to these Star Trek technologies as being very presumptuous.

I will admit that there have been some advances that are not beyond possibility, like the personal communicator (cellphone), medical scanner (MRI, CATSCAN, et al), data tablet (i pad), etc. All these are were advances that logically would seem to be predictable in some form or other.

Occasionally, you get a surprise - like transparent aluminum.

However, there is a great difference between gathering space dust and locking on to a 2 ton defunct satellite.

Much as many of us like Star Trek, what I object to are huge editorial jumps from lab parlor tricks to hard technology, very early in the game.

On the macro level, you would need to use some combination of tractor and "pressor" beams to handle objects safely and with stability, as pointed our by Robert Heinlein (who was an engineer, in his 1941 novel, The Day After Tomorrow (Sixth Column).

If you didn't have this combination, you would draw the object you were manipulating right into the tractor beam projector.

So even if you could come up with a tractor beam to use on a macro level, it would also be necessary to develop a "pressor" beam to use the tractor beam properly.

It would be the "negative feedback" required for a stable system.

This would be mandatory for "towing" an object instead of merely drawing in (or collecting) objects.

Then read the articles and ignore the comments, you thin skinned, narrow minded twit. Do you think you have a monopoly on sanity and what constitutes a 'nutcase' or not. In the real world people do disagree, sometimes strongly and you might be better off using the nature of the comments to assess the character of the contributors. Me? I just don't like your morally superior attitude. Piss off.

In the real world decent people don't act like you because they would never be taken seriously by anyone or in any line of work and would end up in poverty due to their inability to productively correspond with others of differing opinion.